We Will Be Silent and We Will Be Good
by Random-Battlecry
Summary: She's seeing things. Madness is a strange relief, after the burning fires of the past. Christine is haunted, the Opera Ghost haunts. Post-canon.


**A/N: Because I had to do something to get the taste of _Love Never Dies_ out of my mouth. Blech. Aaargh. Other things.**

**We Will Be Silent and We Will Be Good**

She sees him first, not in the mirror, but in the background of a painting. Raoul has conducted her into the inner sanctum for tea, and there— she doesn't know this house, it doesn't feel like home— is the shade of the Opera Ghost, tucked withered away behind the maundering crowd in the moldering frame. Black spots, the shape of a figure hooded and cloaked, and a seeping aura of menace that makes her clutch at her wrap, fold it tightly around her.

But Raoul's hand is warm on her back.

"Alright, my dear?" he says, and Christine leans into his touch. When she looks back, the Phantom is gone.

"Yes," she says, with her mouth, not her heart.

They're running then, in a civilized way that involves purchasing tickets and packing bundles and boxes and trunks. It's a slow sort of run. Days drift. Hours brush her on the shaking shoulder as they pass. She leaves things behind and resolves to forget, but awakes every morning to find them waiting, silent, questioning. _Did you mean to leave us? _the memories say. _Did you believe it was possible? How deluded must you be, child?_

She sees him again on the boat to America. The candle left burning has gone out, and when she opens the door to her cabin the figure leaps at her throat. She stumbles back with a cry (no one behind her to catch her should she fall, Raoul on deck in the wind and the weather) and shrinks against the opposite wall, hands over her eyes. But with the fear comes a leap of something else, and she looks through her fingers.

It's not Erik at all, of course it isn't. It's only the darkness. She's seeing things; and madness is a strange relief, after the burning fires of the past. The darkness has a shape and the darkness has a purpose, but its shape is not Erik's shape, its purpose has nothing to do with her. She can live with that, and only lies quaking in her bed for moments before she drifts to sleep, dreamless.

They disembark in New York, on a sunny summer day. Christine's hair is heavy with salt, and she winds a scarf around her neck. The buildings loom. They leave the dock, and the carriage horse rears at nothing.

She sees him then. She's sure of it. Cobblestoned streets, and the figure she's been running from, the slow and stately running of a woman who wants to hide without being hidden, to escape without leaving. Raoul takes her hand, holds her tight.

"What is it, Christine?" he asks her, gently. His new wife is pale, easily spooked. The history haunts her. She dreams of fires and cloudy lakes with sunken, sodden bodies. She dreams of passageways and songs scored for screams. She dreams, and doesn't remember, and he can't bring himself to tell her.

"It's him," she says. "Oh Raoul, I know it is him!"

There is nothing and no one in the street. The horse has recovered, and they move on their way. Raoul takes his wife in his arms, and speaks into her hair.

"He isn't there," he murmurs, low. "It's over, Christine. You need never worry again. I'm here, you're safe."

"But I saw him," she says, muffled, to his collar.

Raoul darts a glance upwards, just to be sure. No one lurking around the corner, no dark half-hidden shape in a doorway. No gleam of mask in the sunlight.

"It was a trick of your eyes," he says. "You were deceived. He never left the lair, Christine. Dead or alive, he's there still. Believe me."

Christine opens her eyes, and looks out the window. For the moment, she believes— Erik, here? In this bright brave new world? In the sunlight, among the crowds, chasing her after he had let her go? _Ludicrous._ She believes, and she will go on believing.

"But if it had been," she says, and her body stills. "If it had been, Raoul—"

_Oh, if only it had_, says her tone, and her husband looks at her strangely. Christine does not look at him. She pushes away from him, gently, and sits upright in her seat, gazing out the window. She's becalmed, now, and childlike again with rejoicing. The new strange enchants her. The land beyond, unstepped, awaits.


End file.
